Synanon

EPISODE DETAILS

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Synanon began as an addiction support group that gathered in a grimy Californian flat in the late 1950s. It would grow to become a well-funded utopian society throughout the late ’60s and early ’70s, before declaring itself a religion in 1974. This organisation would attract Hollywood stars like Leonard Nimoy and Jane Fonda to participate in its so-called “Game”, and eventually break up married couples, force men to have vasectomies and women to have abortions, amass assets worth tens of millions of dollars, and become entangled in a web of violence.

Synanon’s leader Charles Dederich is often credited with coining the phrase “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Synanon Museum — "This site is devoted to Synanon memories -- for a way of life now gone which was by turns joyful and terrifying, but which none of us can ever forget. Here you can get an idea of how we lived, what we did, and what happened."